Gordon Thomson Movies

When a pudgy, bespectacled seven-year-old, Olive (Abigail Breslin), voices her desire to take home the coveted Little Miss Sunshine crown at an upcoming beauty pageant, her wildly dysfunctional family sets out on an interstate road trip to ensure her a clear shot at realizing her dreams in former music video directorial team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' quirky feature debut, starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, and Toni Collette. Despite early career success as an outspoken motivational speaker, family patriarch Richard (Kinnear) continues to cling to his "Refuse to Lose" philosophy, much to the chagrin of his increasingly annoyed spouse, Sheryl (Collette). Add into the mix a Nietzsche-reading teenage son (Paul Dano) who has taken a vow of silence until he finds his fate as a fighter pilot; a horny, heroin-happy grandfather (Alan Arkin) with a penchant for creative profanity; and a suicidal genius (Carell) and Proust scholar still reeling about losing both his male lover and his MacArthur Foundation genius grant -- and the stage is set for a road trip in which sanity is sure to take the back seat. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This unusual thriller concerns a man who has gone on a vacation with some friends. One night he meets a woman and impulsively decides to go home with her. He wakes up the next morning to discover something horrible has happened to him. A trip to the doctor confirms that someone removed one of his kidneys, and now the man needs to find out who did it, why it happened and who has his kindey now. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The death of Jessica's role model, Agatha Christie-like mystery novelist Lady Abigail Austin (June Havoc), sets Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to thinking of an incident back in 1947 in which Lady Abigail was involved in a real-life murder case. In an extended flashback, the action takes place on board the luxury liner "Queen Mary", where an ex-Gestapo officer has been stabbed to death--and Lady Abigail is the primary suspect. The presence of a father-son team of detectives (played by John Karlen and Gary Kroeger) suggests that this episode may have actually been intended for an earlier Richard Levinson-William Link TV mystery series, Ellery Queen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season eight of Dynasty finds two of the series' former regulars, Emma Samms as the predatory Fallon Carrington and John James as Fallon's ex-husband Jeff, returning to the series full-time after a brief stint on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys. The two prodigal actors have no trouble jumping right into the series' many intrigues, most of which involve the efforts of scheming Alexis (Joan Collins) to ruin the lives of her former husband Blake Carrington (John Forsythe) and his present spouse, Krystle (Joan Collins). This year, however, Alexis has plenty of competition in the revenge department courtesy of series newcomer James Healey as Sean Rowan, Jeff's brother-in-law and the son of the Carringtons' former butler, who holds Alexis responsible for his father's recent suicide. Also added to the cast this season is Stephanie Dunnam as Karen Atkinson -- the birth mother of the adopted child of Adam Carrington (Gordon Thomson) and his wife, Dana (Leann Hunley) -- who goes to court in hopes of getting her baby back. Season highlights include a heated and very dirty gubernatorial campaign, pitting Blake against Alexis. And the season closes with the latest in a long line of classic catfights between mortal enemies Alexis and Krystle, who should know by now never to start duking it out anywhere near a mud puddle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season five of Dynasty had famously concluded with the notorious "Moldavian Massacre," in which the entire cast was mowed down by machine-gun bullets at the wedding of Alexis' (Joan Collins) daughter Amanda (Catherine Oxenberg) to Prince Michael of Moldavia (Michael Praed). After keeping viewers in suspense as to who survived the carnage, the series launched its sixth season with the happy news that none of the major characters was killed. Though this proved to be a relief to the series' legion of fans, it also marked the beginning of a precipitous drop-off in ratings, from an all-time high throughout the fifth season. This loss of viewers also had a negative effect on the new Dynasty spin-off series, The Colbys. Be that as it may, there was plenty to hold the interest during Dynasty's sixth year on the air, starting with a wild kidnapping plot engineered by Krystle Carrington's scheming niece Sammy Jo (Heather Locklear) and slimy movie producer Joel Abrigore (George Hamilton). As originally conceived, the delightfully despicable Alexis was to have been the kidnap victim, but when Joan Collins briefly ankled the series over a contract dispute, the action was rewritten so that it is Krystle (Linda Evans) who is snatched -- while a lookalike actress named Rita (also Linda Evans) impersonates Krystle, doing her job so well that she even fools Krystle's hubby, Blake (John Forsythe), in the boudoir! New characters this season include Alexis' authoress sister Caress Morell (Kate O'Mara), whose novel "Sister Dearest" is a tell-all tome about...guess who; Christopher Cazenove as Ben Carrington, Blake's long-estranged younger brother; and the Fallmont family: Senator Buck Fallmont (Richard Anderson), his wife, Emily (Pat Crowley), and their son, Clay (Ted McGinley), who falls in love with the redoubtable Sammy Jo. Season six comes to rousing climax as Blake tries to strangle Alexis, and Steven Carrington's (Jack Coleman) seriously disturbed wife, Claudia (Pamela Bellwood), coming to grief (and leaving the series!) by vengefully setting fire to her father-in-law Blake's resort hotel La Mirage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The ratings for Dynasty continued to soar as the nighttime soap opera pursued its fourth season on ABC. The big news this year is the return of Denver oil millionaire Blake Carrington's (John Forsythe) bisexual "black sheep" son Steven, formerly played by Al Corley but now portrayed by Jack Coleman. Reported killed in a horrible accident in Indonesia, Steven was saved by the Herculean efforts of a team of physicians -- including a plastic surgeon, hence his astonishing "new look." Steven spends most of the season enmeshed in a bitter custody battle with father Blake over little Danny, his son by wife Claudia (Pamela Bellwood). Meanwhile, Blake has plenty of non-custodial headaches thanks to his vengeful ex-wife, Alexis (Joan Collins), who succeeds in toppling his financial empire. Also showing up for the first time at the tail end of season four is African-American pop singer Dominique Deveraux (Diahann Carroll). And how does Dominique fit into the series' hitherto all-white shenanigans? Well, it seems that thanks to a long-ago indiscretion by Blake Carrington's father, Dominique is actually Blake's half-sister -- and like everyone else in the Carrington orbit, she has shown up to demand her share of the estate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ever climbing to the top of the ratings heap -- thanks largely to the introduction of the magnificently malevolent Alexis Carrington Colby (Joan Collins) in its second season -- Dynasty serves up even more soap opera skullduggery for its third year on the air. New to the proceedings is mysterious stranger Michael Torrance (Gordon Thomson), who by his own admission turns out to be Adam Carrington, long-lost son of Alexis and her former husband Blake Carrington (John Forsythe). Kidnapped in infancy, Adam has shown up at this critical moment to demand his rightful share of the Carrington millions, even as Alexis is scheming to financially ruin Blake and destroy the life of his current spouse, Krystle (Linda Evans). Also introduced during season three is Kirby Anders (Kathleen Beller), daughter of the Carringtons' butler, Joseph (Lee Bergere), who in effect becomes one of the family when she weds Alexis' stepson Jeff Colby (John James) -- who in turn has just divorced Blake's libidinous daughter, Fallon. Likewise appearing for the first time is Krystle Carrington's ex-husband, tennis pro Mark Jennings (Geoffrey Scott), who in future episodes would rescue mortal enemies Krystle and Alexis from a fiery demise -- then would himself be murdered mysteriously. Finally, season three marks the first appearance of Neil McVane (Paul Burke), an unscrupulous congressman who would ultimately emerge as a cross-dressing killer! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Harlequin Romance Publishing company produced this weeper about an English lass (Susan Penhaligon) who falls for a reclusive former race car driver (Keir Dullea). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide